Veteran of The Psychic Wars
by smallunderthesky
Summary: Sam faces tough times and tough choices. Futurefic: spans the next ten years after AHBL. Spoilers for AHBL, rating for violence and language angst, character death, lost!Sam.


**Characters:** Sam, Dean  
**Genre:** gen (brief mention of het); angst, deathfic, futurefic  
**Warnings:** violence, language; character death, angst; evil/lost!Sam, spoilers for AHBL (possibly minor ones for 2x09)  
**Disclaimer:** The Winchester boys aren't mine. The Impala isn't mine. You all know that.

**Summary:** This picks up right after 2x22 and spans the next ten years. Sam faces tough times and tough choices.

* * *

"It doesn't mean that I'm giving up, Dean!" Sam raises his voice in frustration, words trembling in Bobby's living room. "Besides, you said you wanted to go."

The seemingly endless stacks of books have been thoroughly scoured through; Sam has everything relevant jotted down in a messy notebook, and he wants to give Dean a moment of peace, the break Dean talked about after the whole demonic virus mess in River Grove. Why Dean refuses to take a trip to see the Grand Canyon is beyond him; it certainly would let him blow off some steam. Dean's soul might be have been sold, but he sure as hell has enough energy to keep giving Sam hell for doing the research.

"That was six months ago," Dean huffs; as if he's not liable for anything he's said over two weeks ago.

"And what? Now you don't wanna see it anymore?" Sam gestures with the words, spreads his arms like he's inviting Dean to bring on his worst. Like he's done all his life with Dean and Dad, asking for a fight to get the truth out.

Dean stills at the invitation and looks away. "That's not the point."

"Then what is, Dean? Because I'm a little lost here," Sam says. "You don't want me doing research and you don't wanna take a break. What do you want?"

After seeing Dean shift uncomfortably under his look, Sam blurts out his _Eureka!_ in disbelief. "You wanna hunt?"

"Well," Dean hesitates and glances quickly away from Sam, putting the words in proper order. "Yeah.- Look, there's nothing here and an army of demons out there. We might not get them all, but I'd feel a hell of a lot better if I could bring some of them down with me."

The words are a punch to Sam's gut, but he swallows the pain and shivers. "Fine, but first we visit Grand Canyon."

Sam thinks that he's made Dean some big favor when Dean doesn't fight him on that.

A week later, the Impala weaves through the dusty desert and a hundred miles out, Sam realizes that it was never about Grand Canyon itself. It was about them being together, having no particular place to go and for once, being normal. That was what Dean had wanted all along, and it breaks Sam's heart to see the truth now. Even if the yellow-eyed bastard is gone, Sam decides to make sure that other demons will pay for messing with his family, with Dean.

---

They fight evil like there is no tomorrow --driven by the knowledge that there might not be another if they stopped fighting. In between, Sam's notebook fills with folded and highlighted print-outs and scribbly notes. Dean tells him that if he messes up some spell and turns Dean into a yak because of his doctoresque handwriting, he'll kill Sam. They have three months left and Sam doesn't feel like smiling.

Dean has let him drive the Impala more often lately, and without asking, Sam knows why. Dean is slowly saying goodbye, letting the Impala get used to her new owner, and it just isn't right that the car gets a longer goodbye than he ever will. Also, the part about Dean being doomed? Still wrong.

They leave behind a zig-zagged trail of righted wrongs which fills up quickly, like footprints washed away on a shoreline. Add two hundred demons to a nasty mix of other un-godly evil that crawled out of hell, and the waning number of hunters has their hands full. Sam thinks that it's like the world they were born in, like they have made no difference at all.

Of course he knows that it isn't so, that they have saved people, and he knows that the grateful smiles, handed-out phone numbers and the feds on their tail prove it. But those days seem like a dream now. He's tired --so is Dean, judging by the way he leans his body on everything a little too heavily-- and they have nothing but each other. Too late for anything else.

---

When the last month rolls around, they draw closer to the crossroads where Dean's path began, the place where things went to hell. They don't talk much anymore; whether it's a sign of peace, a truce or another silent war, it's all they have left. Sometimes, when Sam sleeps in the car --or rather pretends to sleep-- he sees Dean smirking. He doesn't call Dean on it and Dean doesn't let the unexplained smirk surface when Sam's awake.

Sam points out that hellhounds will find their prey anywhere; that they don't need to circle around South Dakota looking for them. In fact, Sam thinks that it's a bad plan, though he hates to tell Dean that. After making his opinion known for the umpteenth time, Dean just shoots him the annoyed big brother look. It's so familiar that Sam would laugh if it didn't make him want to cry so much. The look explains everything, though; Sam understands that Dean showing up at the very place where he buried the box (and all of Sam's hopes) is his personal _'Fuck you, bitch'_, and Sam expects no less of him.

---

They are too close to Cold Oak now, two days left in unsuspecting May. Sam shudders constantly, can't shake the feeling of scars on scars, some on the outside, some on the inside but tightening and burning all the same. Dean walks with a slight limp, knee banged up during the last hunt. Demons and more demons; Sam suspects that hunters have now become the hunted.

The washed-out hotel room will probably be their last, Sam figures, and he hates the world just a little bit more.

Sam's black notebook is worn, the corners scuffed and the cover filled with grooves and scrapes. Dean has drawn obscene stick figures on the margins that become a movie when the pages are fanned through; there's also a picture of a yak glued on the last page as a reminder. Sam wonders when Dean has had the time to do that and ignores them because there's nothing else he can do.

He runs his stiff, shaky fingers over the words, eyes glazed and unfocused as he reads them more from memory than from the actual lines. The answers aren't there, not in the highlighted paragraphs, not in the margins, not even in between the fucking lines. There's nothing he can do and tears burn his eyes. Time ticks away as it has always done.

"I'm sorry," Sam whispers and Dean's palm rests on his shoulder, warm and comforting like Sam's the one facing eternal torture. Maybe he's selfish, but he feels just that and he welcomes the short, tight squeeze of Dean's fingers, taking the offered absolution but not being able to embrace it. A year and Dean is still taking care of him.

Salt lines watch over their sleep, but Sam doesn't quite trust them this close to the end. He recites the words of old chants and spells to Dean's even breathing and tries to find a way through the labyrinth, but somewhere between dead-ends his brain goes from over-drive to a blissful dreamless, visionless sleep. The last morning awaits them, and he can't fight back.

---

The shadows fall on the ugly wallpaper in perfectly normal (ha! normal, what a joke) proportions, so Sam knows that the sun has just graced them with her presence. The oranges and yellows shine on the beige decoration, making everything too bright and too pink; the lump on Dean's bed isn't Dean-shaped and a sharp, haunting voice tells Sam that Dean is gone.

Not just 'stepped out to get the last morning coffee' or 'to bang the last small-town waitress' but simply _gone_. As in _not coming back_. He has secretly feared as much; that Dean would leave him before the end, to spare him from the details, to cheat him from their last day and awkward goodbyes. However, this is worse because Sam can imagine Dean's pain, and every second the screams get louder.

Maybe it's him screaming and not Dean. He's not sure.

The first thought squirming into his head is _'no'_ and the rest rush in all at once, leaving him numb on the dingy hotel mattress for days. Dean left him no note, and Sam's mind curls around the hand whose touch still lingers on his shoulder; the guns are all out of sight, maybe they're packed in Dean's duffel --but Sam doesn't want to touch it ever again--, maybe they're in the Impala but he's too tired to get out. Fuck. How did Dean get so good at guessing his actions? There's a dry, strangled chuckle -- he was supposed to be the mind-reading freak, not Dean.

---

Three days into Sam's off-world adventure, he wakes up to a blood-curdling scream. A slow, cursory glance of the room tells him that there's no one else present, his throat is swollen but not raw, so it couldn't have been him. The scream echoes again in the small space, bouncing between the walls and reflecting from the heavy mirror before Sam locates it.

The sun doesn't quite shine in his eyes as he parts the thin curtains covering the window. Salt crystals spill onto the floor but the line is still there, forming a border between his last refuge and the brave new world he has to face sooner or later. Outside a young woman screams again and the black eyes of the two men holding her against the ground choose 'sooner' for him.

Sam steps to the door, crosses another salt line on the threshold and immediately the dust and odd Spring heat cling to him, but he can't bring himself to care. The Impala stands proud in the parking lot. God, twenty-five years and all he has left is the Impala. Sam swallows hard at the thought, fearing Dean's wrath because you. Do. Not. Diss. The. Car. Pointless now. The reason why it's pointless has Sam absorbing the imaginary wrath. He turns it around in his head, holds onto the sharp fringes, lets its fire fill him --veins, mind, heart-- and tastes it in his blood. Vengeance.

The world should have ended in that moment when Sam breaks clean in half, but it doesn't. It's just another day of motel parking lots, sunshine and demons. The world doesn't even tilt the moment Sam discovers he's unarmed and that he needs no guns, because he has something far more powerful at his disposal. He opens his other half up, lets a familiar dark flood take it over and hides the other half under the sky.

"Ah, the great demon hunter," says one of the black-eyed men, taunt clear as the day in its voice. "Couldn't even save his own brother."

Sam feels the world narrowing, its edges drawing closer and confining him to the time warped parking lot in South Dakota. The tilt of his head shakes something loose inside, a dull throb following the mysterious swell of power. Their words mean nothing, he repeats to himself. The girl sobs and he takes a step closer.

"What are you going to do now?" the other man singsongs and lets go of the woman.

Sam's eyes trail the pretty thing in dirty jeans and a bloodied white tee as she gets up; she has also black eyes and they all laugh, closing in on him.

Like they say, pens are mightier than the sword, and Sam commands them all to rewrite the future.

He tears through the demons, suddenly unleashing the built-up rage and the jagged desire for revenge. Their bodies get hit by the waves of hate radiating from Sam and they collapse, unable to resist the force driving them out; Sam could remember the Latin incantation for exorcising demons, but everything around him is black and torturing the sons of bitches feels liberating, like taking a first lungful of air after nearly drowning. Only a twist of his mind and the demons fly through the parking lot, another twist and they're pressed against the ground, a little more concentration and he feels his fingers under their skins, despite that he hasn't moved at all from the doorway. He's dizzy, seeing with a tunnel vision, and the fire within consumes him.

The world doesn't end when he stops caring about the meat suits. Screams from the demons, from the possessed, it makes no difference. All that mattered was Dean --his larger-than-life big brother-- and revenge is all Sam has to live for.

---

Fire has taken up constant residency in Sam now. For the first three months he could hide it, let other hunters believe that it was pain he hid and not brimstone, but Bobby found out, and now Sam keeps away from everyone who could ever recognize what he once was, everyone who could tell the difference in him between now and then. Because 'then' includes Dean, and Dean isn't here now, so this isn't 'then' and this doesn't matter.

Demons are trying to avoid him, slinking away when the Impala's roar gets closer, but he finds them nonetheless. It's not difficult to see the path they make for him and yet he fills it up with black smoke from the exorcised; the bodies are just collateral damage, casualties of war.

At nights, he sees the oddly crumpled bodies and dead eyes staring at him and they are not nightmares, but he shakes violently every time morning comes.

---

He sits down in a bar -- completely unaware of the town or even the state he's in; road signs are insignificant when his senses are so tuned and instincts too aware of his prey. But it's his night-off as demons seem to avoid this place, whatever it is called. The smoke and beat is like in one of those endless dives he visited with Dean and one of them had too much to drink and the other one earned the right to be a complete smart ass about it the next morning. There's a game going on at the pool table and he wonders if he should hustle the kids surrounding it but decides against it. They look like they could use the money and Sam thinks that he could use something else.

The low noise of simultaneous conversations is disrupted by a bright, bubbly laugh from the end of the bar counter. A blond woman is laughing with her friends and when she sees Sam watching, she turns away coyly. He offers her a smile, as close to friendly as he can manage but still, something predatory comes through. _See Dean, that right there is just your type._

She looks a little like someone else, but Sam can't bring himself to specify who exactly, and then she's purring in his lap and pressing her chest heavily against him. The women never feel just right, but they are they only contact that he allows himself to have. Sam skips the niceties when she whispers filth in his ear right there at the bar, and he fucks her through the mattress in his hotel room. Not even two minutes after she's pulled her skirt back on and left, and Sam thinks about the lonely nights and even lonelier crowded beds. How the hell did Dean do it?

So it turns out to be one of those nights that never really come; Sam's spent --mind and body--, lost and hidden so deep he thinks he'll never be found again. The coarse sheet grinds his skin like sandpaper, the pillow is lumpy, and he wants to find something to send back to hell, so that he doesn't have to deal with this.

In the middle of the night, Sam wakes up from an unconscious haze, instincts suddenly ablaze but senses finding nothing. The air shifts minutely, then moves in swirls he can see in the dark, and something drifts around the room, leaving tiny vortices in the corners. Sam's eyes track the movement but see nothing else. It doesn't feel like a poltergeist and that's the only possibility springing to his mind.

He's talked to Dean for so long, words coming out of pure at reflex first, and then trying to keep the only thing he ever truly knew from fading, but he never expected Dean to answer. The air molecules ripple around him now, like sound waves surfing through the fog around Sam's brain, trying to find a way in, demanding answers. It can't be Dean, Sam thinks, he's gone, so he ignores the small, incorporeal voice now somewhere over his right shoulder.

The funny part is --well, nothing's actually funny anymore--, that the voice sounds like Dean, sounds like his big brother teasing him, yelling at him and disapproving his taste of music, clothes or whatfuckingever. It's so normal, so close to what it used to be, that Sam has to cover his ears and curl on the bed to escape the memories. He's not sure if he talks back to drown out the low voice and he's not sure if he falls asleep with curses or pleas on his lips.

In the morning sun Sam steps out in silence again and pulls out an obscure, half-rotten memory of the parking lot; it has to be some cosmic joke. He's standing where his life ended when Dean left and started when he opened himself up and now it feels like ending again. Or maybe starting, there's not much difference.

Even the Impala growls at him suddenly, like he's the enemy. Sam fears that it doesn't mean anything, and he pulls out of the rain-soaked town, already sensing something worth hunting.

---

A light goes out in another pair of innocent eyes, and despite Sam telling himself that it would've happened anyway, he feels guilty. The job is harder now, knowing that Dean doesn't approve his lack of trying or his weapon of choice, that he'd pull a moral lecture worthy of Sam's monologues in his previous life. Sam still talks to Dean, mostly in the Impala, and not counting for that one time two months ago in a crappy motel room, Dean hasn't said a word back. Could be in my head, could be that I ate demonic cocoa puffs for breakfast, Sam snorts and doesn't feel much like going cuckoo. The doubt lingers heavily in the air around Sam wherever he goes, though, and for that he squashes the non-existent voice and the bleeding guilt by fighting the war. Maybe even bloodier than before, but he doesn't pay attention to details.

He tries to lure Dean out by unwinding his cassette tapes in the car. The Metallica tape hovers precariously in the air next to the rearview mirror, but before the slender magnetized strip peels out of its case, Sam opts for the Motorhead tape. Nothing stops him, and frustrated anger wells up inside him.

---

There's a moment where the Impala speeds through Utah when Sam's guilt grows larger than his desire for revenge. The dark, monotonous drive back to South Dakota is hundreds of miles of torture, but he needs to know.

He's not sure if he's coming or going, chasing or running. The sun dips behind the tree line, and the cold fall air invades the Impala and leaves Sam shivering even though the heater is on.

The motel room is empty and Sam's not sure if there's anything of him left.

---

Days have melted together, nights no longer matter, and everything tastes like ash. Demons flinch at Sam's name but it doesn't feel like a victory. However, he knows when the day comes and is back to the room where he started from. The last of his hopes float against the blue horizon, a bundle of forgotten life.

The sun shines brightly and makes his shirt cling to his back. The doorknob burns his palm, but he can't bring himself to care. If the room is empty again, he'll surely fall from the edge, tumble down to a soul-devouring oblivion. No hope and eternally alone. Maybe he should allow it, maybe he'd see Dean there, maybe he could rule hell and set Dean free.

The door creaks --Sam doesn't remember if it's always been like that-- and the temperature is decidedly lower than outside; cold shivers run down his sweaty back. He's so used to fire that anything below burning is freezing.

There's no point in resting, so Sam sits on the edge of forever and listens. Heavy semis wheeze past the hotel and cars streak by, occasionally slowing down and hitting gravel. Doors farther away are slammed shut, and a bed bangs against the adjoining wall.

White noise and hours of silence. Dark noise and more silence.

"So, you're not talking to me anymore, Sammy, is that it?" Dean says with a challenge, interrupting Sam's fall. "You know I'm here."

It breaks Sam's heart to hear the hollow, translucent voice, softly oscillating through space. He cries for the first time since he woke to find Dean gone.

Minutes pass, the sobs weaken, and Sam can now feel a sharp stare in his temple. He pulls his hopes back from the sky and lays them all in one word. "Dean?"

"The one and only," Dean chimes, sounding way too victorious considering the circumstances.

Sam's silent again, thinking of what it means to hear Dean, what anything means to him anymore.

"I'm sorry, Dean. For everything," Sam murmurs.

"I know, Sammy," Dean soothes him, and something marginally more solid than air presses against Sam's shoulder. He can imagine the warmth of the touch and it puts down the flames inside him.

More time ticks away, Sam can't keep track of how much.

"What happened? That night when-," Sam swallows the end of his question.

"Tried to protect you, Sammy," Dean says. "The demons we hunted called for backup, had us surrounded. I couldn't sleep, so- They probably decided that facing the deal-making bitch would be better than spending some real quality time down south."

"So, you're a-," starts Sam and can't finish the thought.

"Spirit. Yeah," Dean states like it's only natural. "Go figure."

Sam sees the irony and a strained chuckle escapes his throat, and it's the first laugh in years; the sound is unfamiliar at first but then Sam realizes that Dean's laughing as well, and the pieces of him that had scattered all over that room two years ago are found.

"You need to change, you know that." Dean finds his serious tone.

"Yeah. Yeah, I know," Sam says, still smiling, but suddenly unable to think beyond the destruction he's caused. Shredded bodies, twisted and broken limbs, void eyes and demons screaming. "Dean- you think this is ever gonna stop?"

"I don't know, Sam," Dean offers and Sam feels the hand on his shoulder again. "But there's no harm in tryin'."

---

"I can't do this anymore, Dean," Sam sighs to the empty space, voice rough and tired and old, but even otherwise. "It's been ten years. If it's not enough- "

He sits in the motel room, remembers all the new smiling faces, streams of joyous tears he has seen people shed, and feels sad. Another long year of trying to help, chanting Latin, soaking in Holy Water and using silver bullets and matches instead of his abilities. Maybe they can't erase the past, maybe they don't come even close to atoning his sins, but he has no strength left. Each year Dean's voice becomes stronger, his touch more solid, and Sam knows that the god-awful jokes he tells each year are getting less numerous. It's a miracle, really, how Dean's patience has lasted this long. Sam just wants to stay with him, keep him company, talk about nothing in particular.

The body-wracking shakes make him feel naked in front of Dean's voice; he's shivering most of the time, fighting off the cold that came when the fire inside him died. Dean's probably read his mind --or seen it somehow-- because he doesn't ask and because for one night a year Sam feels like he has an extra blanket made of Dean's insistent warmth. It always dissipates when the morning comes and one night a year is never enough.

He wants to give up _now_, not one or two days later, not after one more grave. The request is coming, Sam knows that Dean has waited for the moment when Sam's ready, and still he doesn't want to hear it.

"C'mon, Sammy. Nobody likes a quitter," Dean taunts and it's worded like another challenge, hovering in the air. "Just one more job."

Sam pales at the thought of what he's being asked to do, what he's been subconsciously afraid of ever since the first time he heard Dean's disembodied voice. "No."

"I know you don't want to, but it's the only way.- Besides, it would seriously fuck with your karma if you left me here to haunt this place."

"Fuck my karma points, Dean. I'm not gonna salt and burn _you_."

"Too bad, Sam. 'Cos you ain't got a choice," Dean says and means it.

---

Sam follows Dean's voice to the edge of the forest behind the hotel. Spring needs more time, Sam thinks idly after looking at the nearly leafless trees amidst the evergreens. His duffel is packed with salt, lighter fluid, matches and his 9mm which he is sure Dean knows is there. He's also pretty sure that Dean knows what he's going to do with it.

"Okay, I think it's to your left," Dean says.

"That's the third time you're saying that," Sam answers, tiredness clear around his words.

"Well excuse me, He-man, but these trees kinda look the same in the dark," Dean snaps.

Sam steps carefully through the underbrush; the long, new grass whishes around his boots and the old, dried ones try to trip him down by worming around his toes. There's a patch of ground that is more uneven than its surroundings, and Sam pokes the edges with his shovel. The sight of bones should be very familiar to him by now, but Sam's has never looked at his brother's skeleton and he feels bile rising in his throat.

He falls on his knees to the grass and empties his stomach. The stinging tears are not relieving the pain, nothing is, and he kneels there for a while, not bothering to get up. Dean's hand lands on his back, making soothing circles like when they were kids in another life.

"Sam, it's time to do this," Dean says.

"I- I can't," Sam sighs.

"Yes, you can," Dean commands. "And if you won't, then I will."

Sam's head turns up slowly as he spots unexpected movement over his shoulder; he's too tired to launch into an attack, too tired to care who --or what-- stops him from killing his brother for good. But it's Dean, in the metaphysical flesh, grinning like he fucking owns the world and Sam can't remember a moment when he's ever been happier. If he had thought that he could deny Dean this one last request, he can't say 'no' to anything anymore.

It's a simple hug --arms tight over shoulders--, lasting a few beats longer than Dean usually allows, but it's just what Sam needs after ten years of not seeing his brother.

Dean tries to pull away first, a little exasperated. "I'll throw in the matches myself if you don't get off me."

Sam ignores the mock threat and holds on a second longer. Dean hands him the container of salt and stands next to Sam, watching how it spills on the bones, on the ground. He pulls the lighter fluid from the duffel and waits for Sam to reach for it.

"Do you- do you wanna do it?" Sam asks.

Dean's eyes widen at first, waiting for Sam's explanation. A small smile crosses Sam's features and Dean nods, smiling himself. "You trying to say I should drop dead, Sammy? That's cold."

The situation is morbid, but Sam can't help but laugh at Dean. With Dean. Maybe it is time to end this.

Dean presses the matchbook in Sam's palm. "We win, Sammy."

Sam nods shakily, returns Dean's smile and lights the matches. "We win."

He flicks the flaming matches to the mixture of _'leave'_ and _'now'_ on his brother's bones and seeks out Dean's form that is still standing next to him. It doesn't flicker or turn black like most of the times he's seen -done- this. Instead, bright light fills the space where Dean was standing, increasing in intensity, lighting the world and then fading away, taking last of the world's heat with it.

Sam drops to his knees and reaches for his duffel one more time, barely seeing it through his tears. The weight of his old 9mm is familiar, but its path is new. Sam lifts the gun slowly to his head, with a steady hand, with no regrets. "We win, Dean."

He never hears the roar and never feels the bullet hit. There's only light and a solid, warm hand on his shoulder.

_-end-_


End file.
